Secrets
by Simplicity Is Bliss
Summary: Fifty secrets Remus and Sirius know about each other. References to sex and death.
1. Remus

A/n: My attempt to get back into the HP fandom after sort of moving away.

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Fifty Secrets Sirius Knows about Remus

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Sirius knows the moment that Remus realized that they knew about his lycanthropy. He remembers the way Remus's face had paled and he looked like he would either bolt or be sick. Because he didn't know that they didn't care yet.

He also remembers the moment Remus realized he was in love. They were lounging in the late morning sun, hiding in their eden, and Remus rolled over to look at him. Sirius looked back and noticed the way Remus look briefly confused, surprised, slightly horrified, and then, tentatively, happy.

Remus collects horrible romance novels. Sirius found them buried in the bottom of an aging trunk in their flat during the first war and flipped through a few before returning them with a silent smile.

Beneath that quiet, bookish facade, Remus is perhaps the most subtly manipulative person Sirius has ever met.

He's also the most subtle insulter Sirius has ever met. If the purebloods had understood half of what he said to them, there's a high probability that he'd be dead.

Remus was the first of them to kill someone. The man had been a Death Eater who got in the way of a curse meant for someone else and fallen off the edge of a cliff into the crashing sea below. After the battle, he'd thrown up once, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a distant look in his eyes, and then never mentioned it or gave any sign that it bothered him.

There's a self-destructive streak in him a mile wide. He catches Remus staring at silver or the edges of things with a deep drop sometimes and he drinks too much. He also risks his life unnecessarily. Sirius doesn't think Remus is actually suicidal; just that he can't help it.

Everyone thinks Remus is an idealist. He's not and never has been. Sirius sometimes catches the cynical, amused, bitter look in his eyes when someone is being naive. Sometimes Sirius thinks he relishes the idea of loosing because he would be proven _right,_ even if only he ever knew that. It probably relates back to his self destructive nature.

Remus loves to fish. The day after a hard test, he'd wake up absurdly early, take his pole and bait out to the river that feeds the lake, and fish all day long. It had taken Sirius ages to figure out where he went those days, but he never intruded.

He's an insomniac because he can never shut his mind off. Remus had explained that to him one night, half drunk and miserable. "It never, ever stops," he'd said, staring at the ceiling. "Worries, hopes followed by automatic crushing thereof."

Most wizards and witches are vaguely spiritual. Remus isn't and he's an atheist. He simply doesn't care about that kind of thing and muddles along without it.

He dislikes cats.

Remus is both emotionally and sexually attracted to other men, but only sexually to women, though he appreciates their company. And he was shallow, when it came to the girls he fucked when they were in school, back before he and Sirius got together. And mostly, that's all it had ever been.

He hadn't been a monk after Sirius had been taken to Azkaban. Sirius had almost hoped he had been, but that was wrong of him. A large part of Remus's nature is sensual and sexual; to deny him that, to punish him for it, would have been cruel.

Remus had considered suicide in the aftermath of that Halloween. He thought he was the last true Marauder left and that had _ached_ in a way he hadn't been able to express the night they talked about it. Harry hadn't even crossed his mind. Sirius had been shocked.

He also collects fantasy novels. His favorites are Tolkien (of course) and Pratchett.

Ophelia, a girlfriend he had had, taught him to drive in the mid eighties. It completely terrifies him but he knows how.

When it comes to Harry, Remus isn't sure how to behave. The boy is the only child of two of his best friends but he's so different than they had been and, in his own way, unapproachable.

Lily had been been an exception. She had been his first and he had loved her, in his own way. They'd only had sex once, but Remus felt ill for weeks. It was a betrayal of James and he could barely stand himself for having slept with her.

Harry's sometimes casual disregard of his own life scares Remus and he desperately wants to fix that. But doesn't know how.

He had a multiple track mind. He could carry on a conversation, plan a prank, and explore a story line almost simultaneously and keep them straight.

Remus wanted to be a writer but had no illusions about ever getting published. He wrote anyway, if only because it narrowed his focus down to one thing.

His relationship with his parents was always strained, even as a child. They had never been cruel but always kept him at arm's length.

Perhaps accordingly, when they were alone, he was just about the most tactile person Sirius had ever met.

When Sirius first told him he loved him, Remus hadn't been sure what to say. He had looked puzzled, like he didn't understand what Sirius had just said, before accepting the proclamation with a kiss.

Remus is not ashamed of his body and he would answer the door naked if they were not expecting visitors. James and Peter had made sure to always call before they arrived, so as to avoid being greeted by a naked, mildly annoyed Remus at the door.

He thought James knew that he and Lily had had sex once.

Remus knew he was prone to lashing at against anyone and anything that annoyed him and being dagger on-point for two days before a moon, but rarely restrained it.

He had had a temper hot enough to melt steel, back when they were at Hogwarts. Time had tempered that, but sometimes Sirius still saw flashes of it, right before the moon. He would start to say something cutting and then clamp his mouth shut and close his eyes. When he opened them, his face was impassive.

Simply because he didn't like other people didn't mean that he felt the need to be cruel to everyone. He had little faith in his fellow humans and was a twitching ball of wrath for two days a month, but he could and would restrain it when it came to people who didn't deserve it.

The calm he exuded was mostly a convenient mask.

Sirius had seen Remus completely loose his temper once. A man at a pub had called Lily a mudblood whore when she was out of the room (she had stalked out in order to keep her cool earlier, a nervous James at her heels) and Remus had completely unloaded on him. Every ounce of subtlety had gone out the window and he had torn through the man like a knife through wet tissue paper.

Remus loved the feel of feathers. He would close his eyes, gasp, and shiver when Sirius traced nonsense on his skin.

He loved sex pressed against a wall the most.

It was not uncommon, toward that last Halloween, for him to deliberately pick a fight with Sirius.

Remus was a stickler about grammar. He would sometimes edit Peter's papers for him and Sirius would sometimes catch him twitching and sighing at the worst mistakes.

He liked to cook and spoil his friends.

Remus was also something of a photographer.

After Halloween 1981, he had almost abandoned the Wizarding world, sinking himself into Muggle society.

He was generous when it came to everything but blankets, books, and his records.

Remus loves the snow.

He doesn't fear death, and Sirius knows that when it comes for him, he will stand tall, teeth bared in challenge.

Sometimes, in winter, Remus used to disappear on those two wrathful days a month to scream into the howl of a gale sweeping in.

He's a tidy man out of habit. When you have nothing, there's no mess to be made.

They once tried a bit of tying up in bed and it had set Remus into a blind panic.

Aside from Sirius, Remus is the most suave and has talked his way into more people's pants than he can count.

He also fucked a drag queen.

Remus is a bit neurotic. Always was, but it's worse these days.

He doesn't like Molly Weasley.

He would very much like to kill Greyback.


	2. Sirius

Fifty Secrets Remus Knows about Sirius

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Sirius is the most angry person Remus has ever met. He keeps it wrapped up, under layers and layers of brashness, callousness, and indomitable energy.

Remus knows Sirius sometimes wishes that he was no different than the rest of his family, in a peculiar, bittersweet sort of way. This life is so hard and to just fall in line would have been so easy.

That said, Sirius picked this life and wouldn't give it up.

He hates his family, but not only because they're horrible people. He hates them for rejecting him.

After he was kicked out, Sirius cried. He once loved his mother very much and the finality of being thrown out, the ultimate sign that she hated him, was unbearable.

Loosing Regulus was agonizing.

Sirius is very aware of his mental instability and it terrifies him. He knows that someday, it'll destroy him.

He fears a loss of control more than anything else.

Despite his reputation, Sirius was always a gentleman and didn't actually sleep with half the girls in their year. Remus thinks the reputation was almost completely fabricated.

He loves kissing just as much as sex and sometimes that's all he and Remus did.

He's also the most discreet person Remus knows. If you tell him your secrets, he'll never tell another soul.

Sirius loves to smile and Remus thinks it might be the purpose of his existence to make him smile as much as possible.

He collects oddities - weird little things he finds in shops and sometimes on the street. He once found a twisted metal flamingo with a cigar hanging out of its mouth, which he kept in their sitting room.

Taking care of other people is one of his favorite things in the world.

It's almost impossible to get him to let other people take care of him in turn. This manifests itself the worst after Azkanban, and it's all Remus can do not to scream or shake him for his insistence that he doesn't need Remus's help.

At first, he hated Lily. She rejected his best friend and, at the same time, threatened to take James away from him. It took him months after James and Lily got together to accept her and it almost destroyed his friendship with James.

Sirius would rather be outside than do anything else. It kills Remus to see what Grimmauld Place does to him because he cannot go outside.

He makes holding a grudge into an art form.

Sirius hates flying and it's not because heights scare him.

Sirius taught himself Russian to see if he could.

He had thrown himself into the war effort the moment they graduated because he didn't know what else to do with himself.

He hates pity.

Despite himself, Sirius is superstitious. Opening an umbrella inside is a good way to make him angry and there was always a scattering of salt behind his seat at any table. He knows it's silly but can't help himself.

He writes letters to his future self and stashes them in a cigar box. After he had gone to Azkaban, Remus had thrown out almost a decade's worth of them and he had never seen Sirius look so wounded as he did when he found out. He takes it up again and after he dies, Remus cherishes each letter but never opens them.

When they were in school, when Sirius got angry, he was cold and silent and still. Remus thinks this is because responding as he wanted to would have lead to his mother slapping him.

Sirius does things entirely to see if he can. It's not that he's daring himself, but to see his limits.

He is, hands down, an all or nothing sort of person. He doesn't see shades of grey and does everything with an almost violent passion.

Competition bores him. He just wants to be prefect at what he does.

Trying to win his approval when he's clearly expressed his scorn will only win the seeker his mocking contempt.

When he got old, Sirius full intended to be a dirty old man.

Sirius isn't actually into Muggle things and doesn't quite understand them. He just used them to rebel against his parents.

He only sleeps with people who matter to him, meaning his list is quite short.

He's not much for sweets and when girls used to give him boxes of chocolate, he smiled politely, thanked them, and promptly passed them off to his friends.

Sirius falls in love easily. Remus suspects it's because he enjoys the novelty.

Each time he was broken up with (and he was always the one who was broken up with), the other person ended up with a chunk of his heart. It's a wonder he has anything left, Remus sometimes thinks.

He knits.

Sirius doesn't know how to relax or let go. Once he's latched on to an emotion or gotten involved with a project, it's impossible to get him to stop. That can be exhilarating (Remus loves being the center of his intense attention) but mostly it's exhausting for both of them.

He loves planning more than the actual execution of a plan. It gives his mind a place to play.

Making passes at anything in a skirt is expected of him, so he does it.

He would have had an arranged marriage, had things gone differently, and was ok with that. She was good looking and calm and steady. She would have been something to come home to.

He doesn't think about himself most of the time and lives for a select group of other people.

Sirius likes nonfiction the best and thoroughly enjoys history. During Binns's lectures, he used to kick back in his chair with a history book and openly ignore their professor. Remus half-thinks Binns knew what he was doing and allowed it anyway.

There's a long list of people Sirius hates. Currently, it includes Dumbledore, all Death Eaters, and Molly Weasely.

He can't forgive himself. For anything. Ever.

His philosophy is "better out than in" and that includes his anger. He never says anything in front of the kids, but everyone else gets the sharp edge of his tongue when he feels the need. He especially enjoys needling Shacklebolt and Moody.

Once, Remus came home to find Sirius having a screaming match with his mother's portrait.

Remus remembers the moment that Sirius almost told him he loved him again. The words had been on the tip of his tongue and his eyes had said it all.

As much as he hates Dumbledore these days, he's secretly proud that the Headmaster turns to him for tactical planning.

On more than one occasion, Remus found him in Buckbeak's room, staring at the creature with a look of longing in his eyes.

Sirius is a cuddlewhore. He made Remus promise that there would be cuddling after sex nightly for the first few months of their relationship


End file.
